


Give me envy, give me malice, give me your attention

by draculaspetbee



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex is in a bad place here, Angst, Canonical Child Abuse, Disassociation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, References to Depression, References to Panic Attacks, Unreliable Narrator, depictions of ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21823231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculaspetbee/pseuds/draculaspetbee
Summary: Snippet:He would never admit it, but sometimes Alex was glad that he lived in the desert. It sounds cliché, but out there no one could hear him scream.Which is what he was doing now, screaming into the vast unknown. He did this sometimes when it became too much. When the pressure on his chest made him feel like he was going to explode, when he thinks that he is one off comment away from blowing up himself and everyone in the vicinity.
Relationships: Referenced Alex Manes/Michael Guerin, Referenced Maria Deluca/Michael Guerin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Give me envy, give me malice, give me your attention

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is kind of personal for me. I was recently diagnosed (for the second time) with PTSD, and all of these thoughts, and things Alex does here are things I struggle with personally. Up to and including screaming myself hoarse in the middle of nowhere. So, this is as much an introspection as it is a fic.  
> Also, yes the title is from a Panic! At the Disco song lol.
> 
> This was not beta read, so all mistakes are my own.

He would never admit it, but sometimes Alex was glad that he lived in the desert. It sounds cliché, but out there no one could hear him scream.

Which is what he was doing now, screaming into the vast unknown. He did this sometimes when it became too much. When the pressure on his chest made him feel like he was going to explode, when he thinks that he is one off comment away from blowing up himself and everyone in the vicinity.

The sand blows around him as his voice goes ragged. He screams past the pain shredding his vocal chords, until his voice runs out. Alex realizes he’s kneeling in the sand, and something in his brain pings and tells him that it’s going to be more difficult for him to get up if he doesn’t stand soon.

But he doesn’t _want_ to. He just wants to kneel there and keep screaming until his brain goes silent. He shakes his head at the thought. He’s always known that what he wants doesn’t matter. That has been his constant mantra, since childhood. Alex knows he shouldn’t believe it, but deep down he does. It’s hard not to believe something you’ve had beaten into you. Alex creaks to his feet, his leg aching from being on the ground for so long. How long **has** he been out here? The sun is setting around him, and the hours catch up with him all at once. He had disassociated again.

If anyone had asked him, he **was** screaming for a reason. No one would ask. He’d had a dream last night. He didn’t get many of those anymore, but when he does, they fuck with his head. They aren’t how people told him they would be. They said it would be flashbacks, reliving moments of his past, the most horrible things that had happened to him cropping up around him in his mind.

But Alex dreamed of things that hadn’t happened. Instead it was things that he was afraid of happening, Jesse coming after him, chasing him to the ends of the earth, killing him. He ached with the knowledge that though he had escaped the reach of Jesse physically, he was still being attacked in his own home. This time by his own brain. The latest had found him trapped in a car, with Jesse driving. His father had looked at him from the driver’s seat and told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to kill the both of them. That he hated him so much that he was willing to go down with Alex to make sure that Alex was killed. Alex could still feel the caustic fear clogging up his throat, coating his tongue with bile as it rose up within him.

In the waking world Alex knew he could take measures to protect himself against Jesse now, but asleep he was still that scared kid in the shed, watching his father rip his heart out of his chest and make him leave it behind, still throbbing on the ground. In his dreams Alex was helpless, how could he stop a monster, especially when he was related to the monster that haunted him? A small part of him knew he shouldn’t **have** to fear his father, that he should have been protected and loved as a child, that this was so screwed up for him to have to deal with this pain alone. But that’s how it was. Sometimes in the dark of night when he laid shivering from the nightmares, he even wondered if he deserved it.

He hadn’t ever reached out for help. When he was a child people had called him brave, they told him how strong he was for putting up with what he had. How he was “such a strong boy” for not giving up and for dealing with it on his own. But he hadn’t ever asked for help. He had been trained not to, not by the Air Force, but by the man who was supposed to raise and protect him. He’d ask for help once, and it had earned him a black eye and a broken heart for his trouble. So, he knew from experience help wouldn’t come, what was the point of asking for it? If it didn’t come for him as a kid, it definitely wouldn’t come now.

His dreams were worse now. After Caulfield. He knew now that his father was capable of genocide, so how was he supposed to talk his brain out of the absolute knowledge that he could kill Alex without a second thought?

Alex limped over to his Jeep, pain lancing up his leg from where he had kneeled on his prosthetic too long. He hadn’t gotten up from his knees fast enough, but he knew he had deserved the pain. He always deserved the pain. He swayed at the door, trying to gather the strength to open it and drive back to his cabin. He tried to think of Buffy, who would be waiting for him at home, her nails clicking against the wood floors as she jumped around with excitement to see him. Sometimes not even the thought of her could make him drag himself back home, maybe she would be better off without him, in the hands of someone else.

The one thing that used to give him hope, that used to give him fire in his stomach that replaced the acid of fear, was gone now. He wasn’t Alex’s anymore. He never was Alex’s to have. Alex was too dark, too broken to be wanted by someone beautiful and caring as Michael. He knew that now. He had been given a small respite in the unfair world, just for a bit, before he was thrust back out into the hurricane of pain that was his life. Michael had been the eye of the storm for him, and now he knew he had been silly to believe he could live there in peace. Alex had brought darkness into the life of his sun, and the guilt that he carried because of that threatened to consume him on a daily basis.

He couldn’t remember much of the drive home, his head strangely buzzing, feeling like it was filled with static. Buffy was waiting for him at home, barking and jumping like always for him. Alex took her out for a bit, and then he settled on the couch, leaving his prosthetic leaning against coffee table. Finally, he let her comfort him, all two feet of her wriggling and licking his face. He began slip away into tears as he felt the pressure in his chest break apart, painfully, each shard of it sticking in his heart a piece of self-doubt, self-hatred, and all-consuming guilt.


End file.
